Contents

Early years

Ulbricht was born in Leipzig where his father worked as a tailor. He spent eight years in primary school (Volksschule). After leaving school he trained to be a joiner. Both his parents worked actively for the Social Democratic Party (SPD). Walter Ulbricht joined the party in 1912.

In the years before the 1933 Nazi seizure of power, there were frequent disturbances caused by the presence of paramilitary forces of left and right. Violence connected with demonstrations was common, with supporters of each side fighting each other and the police. In 1931 the Communists in Berlin decided on a policy of killing two police officers for every communist demonstrator killed by police, and as a result Walter Ulbricht urged fellow communists Heinz Neumann and Hans Kippenberger to plan the murder of two Berlin police officers, Paul Anlauf and Franz Lenck. The killing was carried out by Erich Ziemer and Ulbricht's later chief of national security, Erich Mielke. In 1932, the Comintern ordered the Communists to cooperate with the Nazis, so Ulbricht and Joseph Goebbels, Nazi 'Gauleiter' for Berlin, both urged their respective constituents to support the Berlin transport workers' strike in November 1932. The strikers were appalled by the scene of Nazis and Communists marching together and the strike was halted after five days. [2]

Nazi and war years

The Nazi Party attained power in Germany in January 1933, and very quickly began a purge of Communist and Social Democrat leaders in Germany. Following the arrest of the KPD's leader, Ernst Thälmann, Ulbricht campaigned to be Thälmann's replacement as head of the Party. Many competitors for the leadership were killed in the Soviet Union thanks to Ulbricht.[3]

Ulbricht lived in exile in Paris and Prague from 1933 to 1937. The German Popular Front under the leadership of Heinrich Mann in Paris was dissolved after a campaign of behind-the-scenes jockeying by Ulbricht to place the organization under the control of the Comintern. Ulbricht tried to persuade the KPD founder Willi Münzenberg to go to the Soviet Union, allegedly so that Ulbricht could have "them take care of him". Münzenberg refused. He would have been in jeopardy of arrest and purge by the NKVD, a prospect in both Münzenberg's and Ulbricht's minds.[4] Ulbricht spent some time in Spain during the Civil War, as a Comintern representative, ensuring the liquidation of Germans serving on the Republican side who were regarded as not sufficiently loyal to Stalin; some were sent to Moscow for trial, others were executed on the spot.[5] Ulbricht lived in the Soviet Union from 1937 to 1945.

During the German-Soviet alliance 1939-1941, Ulbricht promoted in the Comintern journal 'Die Welt' the official line of co-operation with Nazi Germany. Thus, he opined that the German government declared itself ready for friendly relations with the Soviet Union, whereas the English-French war bloc desires a war against the socialist Soviet Union. The Soviet people and the working people of Germany have an interest in preventing the English war plan.“[6]

Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, Ulbricht was active in a group of German communists under NKVD supervision (a group including, among others, the poet Erich Weinert and the writer Willi Bredel) which, among other things, translated propaganda material into German, prepared broadcasts directed at the invaders, and interrogated captured German officers. In February 1943, following the surrender of the German Sixth Army at the close of the Battle of Stalingrad, Ulbricht, Weinert and Wilhelm Pieck conducted a Communist political rally in the center of Stalingrad which many German prisoners were forced to attend. The NKVD head Lavrenty Beria described Ulbricht as "the greatest idiot that he had ever seen." [7]

Creation of the GDR

In April 1945 Ulbricht lead a group of party functionaries ("Ulbricht group") into Germany to begin reconstruction of the German Communist party along orthodox Stalinist lines. Within the Soviet occupied zone of Germany, the Social Democrats and Communists united to form the Stalinist dominated Socialist Unity Party of Germany (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands or SED), and Ulbricht played a key role in this.

At the third congress of the SED in 1950, Ulbricht announced a five-year plan concentrating on the doubling of industrial production. As Stalin was at that point keeping open the option of a re-unified Germany, it was not until 1952 that the party moved towards the construction of a socialist society in East Germany.[8]

By 1952, 80 percent of industry had been nationalised. Blindly following an outmoded Stalinist model of industrialisation – concentration on the development of heavy industry regardless of the cost, availability of raw materials, and economic suitability – produced an economy that was short of consumer goods, and those that were produced were often of shoddy quality. Growth was also hampered by a deliberate exclusion from the higher educational system of children of 'bourgeois' families. One consequence was the flight of large numbers of citizens to the West: over 360,000 in 1952 and the early part of 1953. [9]

In 1957, Ulbricht arranged a visit to a East German collective farm at Trinwillershagen in order to demonstrate the GDR's modern agricultural industry to the visiting Soviet Politburo member Anastas Mikoyan. Following the death of Wilhelm Pieck in 1960, the SED abolished the function of President of the GDR and instead created a new institution, the Staatsrat der DDR (Council of State of the GDR), of which Ulbricht, as leader of the party, became Chairman and therefore Head of State. From this point until the early seventies, Ulbricht was the unquestioned leader of the party and the country.

Although modest economic gains were being made, emigration still continued. By 1961, 1.65 million had fled to the west.[10] On 13 August 1961, work began on what was to become the Berlin Wall, only two months after Ulbricht had emphatically denied that there were such plans ("Nobody has the intention of building a wall").[11]

The 1968 invasion by Warsaw Pact troops of Czechoslovakia and the suppression of the Prague Spring were also applauded by Ulbricht – East German soldiers were among those massed on the border but did not cross over, probably due to Czech sensitivities about German troops on their soil – and earned him a reputation as a staunch Soviet ally in contrast to Romanian leader Nicolae Ceauşescu, who condemned the invasion.

The New Economic System

Visit in Trinwillershagen colchoz

From 1963, Ulbricht and his economic adviser Wolfgang Berger attempted to create a more efficient economy through a New Economic System (Neues Ökonomisches System or NÖS). This meant that under the centrally coordinated economic plan, a greater degree of local decision-making would be possible. The reason was not only to stimulate greater responsibility on the part of companies, but also the realization that decisions were sometimes better taken locally. One of Ulbricht's principles was the 'scientific' execution of politics and economy – making use of sociology and psychology but most of all the natural sciences. The effects of the NÖS, which corrected mistakes made in the past, were largely positive, with growing economic efficiency.

The New Economic System was not very popular within the party, however, and from 1965 onwards opposition grew, mainly under the direction of Erich Honecker and with tacit support of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. Ulbricht's preoccupation with science meant that more and more control of the economy was being relegated from the party to specialists. Also, Ulbricht's motivations were at odds with communist theory, which did not suit ideological hardliners within the Party.

Dismissal, death and legacy

Ulbricht's difficult relationship with Leonid Brezhnev proved to be his eventual undoing. On 3 May 1971 Ulbricht was forced to resign from virtually all of his public functions 'due to reasons of poor health' and was replaced – with the consent of the Soviets – by Erich Honecker. He was allowed to remain head of state as Chairman of the Council of State. Additionally, the honorary position of Chairman of the SED was created especially for him. Ulbricht died at a government guesthouse in Groß Dölln near Templin, north of East Berlin, on 1 August 1973, during the World Festival of Youth and Students, having suffered a stroke two weeks earlier. He was honoured with a state funeral and buried among other communists in the Zentralfriedhof Friedrichsfelde.

Ulbricht remained loyal to Leninist and Stalinist principles throughout his life, rarely able or willing to make compromises. Inflexible and unlikeable (Anthony Beevor described him as "widely loathed Stalinist bureaucrat well known for his tactics denouncing rivals".[12]), he was an unlikely figure to attract much public affection or admiration. However, he also proved to be a shrewd and intelligent politician who knew how to get himself out of more than one difficult situation. Despite stabilising the GDR to some extent, he never succeeded in raising the standard of living in the country to a level comparable to that in the West.

In 1956, Ulbricht was awarded the Hans Beimler Medal, for veterans of the Spanish Civil War, which caused controversy among other recipients, who had actually served on the front line.[13]

Ulbricht lived in Majakowskiring, Pankow, East Berlin. Ulbricht was married twice; in 1920 to Martha Schmellinsky and from 1953 until his death to Lotte Ulbricht née Kühn (1903-2002). The couple adopted a daughter from the Soviet Union named Beate (1944–1991).

Notes

^ Frank, Mario, Walter Ulbricht. Eine Deutsche Biographie (Berlin 2001), 117-121. Frank only gives an example of Kippenberger. Other competitors were killed as well, but it is very likely the initiative of the NKVD, given the anti-German frenzy in the Soviet union at that time.

^ Robert Solomon Wistrich, Who's Who in Nazi Germany, Routledge, 2001; John Fuegi, Brecht and Company: Sex, Politics and the Making of the Modern Drama, Grove Press, 2002, p.354; Noel Annan, Changing Enemies: The Defeat and Regeneration of Germany, Cornell University Press, 1997, p.176

From Wikiquote

Walter Ulbricht (30 June1893 – 1
August1973) was an communistEast German statesman. He
ruled the country from 1950 until 1971 when he was ousted from the
powerful position of the general secretary of the Socialist Unity
Party of Germany and stayed at the ceremonial position of chairman
of the State Council.

Sourced

The builders of our capital are fully engaged in residential
construction, and its labor force is deployed for that.
Nobody has the intention to erect a wall." - 15
June 1961 at a press conference in East Berlin. Less than two
months later construction began. ("Die Bauarbeiter unserer
Hauptstadt beschäftigen sich hauptsächlich mit Wohnungsbau, und
ihre Arbeitskraft wird dafür voll eingesetzt. Niemand hat die
Absicht, eine Mauer zu errichten.")

Is it truely the case that we have to copy every dirt that
comes from the west? I think, comrades, with the monotonism of the
yeah yeah yeah and how that all is called should we make a stop. -
In 1965 at the 11. congress of the central comitee of the SED
refering to the "Yeah, Yeah, Yeah" of the Beatles and against the
Rockmusic from the west in general ("Ist es denn wirklich so, dass
wir jeden Dreck, der vom Westen kommt, nu kopieren müssen? Ich
denke, Genossen, mit der Monotonie des Je-Je-Je, und wie das alles
heißt, ja, sollte man doch Schluss machen.") [1]

Unsourced

Any sensible family has a budget that lays out how much will be
spent for household and other purposes. Without such planning,
things would quickly go awry.

Because we have eliminated the anarchy of monopoly capitalism,
we could develop this plan and take the first steps to fulfilling
it.

By 1955 we will have more meat, sugar, milk, etc., per capita
than we did in 1936. The same will be true of many other important
goods.

By next year, 1953, rationing will be abolished and all
foodstuffs and industrial goods will be available at fixed and
affordable prices.

Dear fellow citizens, this plan is not only a shining beacon
for us, but also stands against the lying fog that McCoy and
Adenauer wish to spread between us and our fellow German citizens
in the West.

Gifts fall from heaven only in fairy tales.

I ask you to let the government know immediately when you see
serious problems or mistakes that stand in the way of our great
community endeavor.

If we want to live in the way the Five Year Plan 1951-1955
proposes - and we will! - each of us must help.

In many other nations, including the Western part of our
Fatherland, the economy does not take heed of the people's
needs.

In the past, people worked together only when some great
disaster threatened.

It is the most important contribution we can make to speeding
up reunification.

Let there be great enthusiasm for the plan throughout the
entire republic that will overcome all obstacles. Let us join
together to realize the Five Year Plan and bring our economy and
our own living standards to previously unknown heights.

Let us get to work, in full knowledge that the plan will awaken
the great creative forces in each German and help them to
blossom!

Let us show our fellow countrymen and the entire world what the
Germans can do when they work for peace.

Let us together build a happy and prosperous life, free from
debts and oppression, built on firm foundations that will guarantee
peace in Europe.

Long live the united front of the fighting proletariat and all
workers against exploitation, Young Plan enslavement, and
Fascism!

Look to the Soviet Union, which has freed itself from every
enemy!

May we soon enjoy the fruits of our labor in a peaceful and
united Germany.

Something new has happened: For the first time in German
history our fatherland is guided by a plan that considers only the
needs of the people, and aims at building prosperity and
reconstructing of our fatherland.

Still we can see an improvement in our living standard from
year to year. We owe that to the early fulfillment of the Two Year
Plan of 1949-1950, and the economic successes of 1951.

The armaments manufacturers in France and England are doing
well, but constant inflation is devouring the purchasing power of
working people.

The Five Year Plan proposes even faster growth. Industrial
production will more than double by 1955 when compared to
1936.

The government of the German Democratic Republic rejects secret
policies. It works for the people, and only the people, so it does
not need to keep secrets like the warmongers.

The guiding principle is not to manufacture the goods everyone
needs, rather to earn profits for a few capitalists.

The more you participate in our common endeavors, the more
successful your work in the factory, mine, wharf or village, in an
economic institute or in the arts, in commerce or administration,
the sooner we will be where we all want to be.

The nature of a democracy consists to an important degree in
the right of the people to criticize problems and mistakes.

The plan shows that the twenty million people in the German
democratic Republic and in the democratic sector of Berlin think
only of peace, and that they are working for freedom and peaceful
prosperity.

The success of each of us benefits us all, and the success of
us all benefits each of us individually.

The victory of the working people over the exploiters and slave
holders is at the same time the victorious struggle for liberation
by the German people.

The West German population would protest passionately if it
knew what secret meetings between the federal chancellor, McCoy,
and foreign and Nazi generals are planning.

This hunger for profits causes great misery for the
people.

Today we are in the midst of a vast project that will bring
happiness to us all, and will prevent new disasters from befalling
our suffering people.

We see in West Germany that the number of millionaires is
growing even as workers' real wages and incomes are sinking.

When has there ever been a government in German history that
came to the people and revealed its detailed plans for the coming
years? That could not happen before, since German governments
planned war and conquest.